And now, to pass by a sudden transition from the highest to the lowest specimens of those professing 'Evangelical' principles, it must not surely be forgotten, that from the invention of those principles to the present day there have always been some among their professors, who (I do not say have carried these principles to their full and true results; the basest of mankind could not bring themselves to that; but) have united a confident assurance of salvation with open and undeniable habits of profligacy and depravity. We see this in the abandoned Anabaptists contemporary with Luther, and among some English fanatics contemporary with Charles I.; nay, I fear from what more than one clergyman has said, there can be no fair room for doubt, that the same exists in a considerable degree among various classes of dissenters at the present time. It is very well to say that this is a corruption or perversion of Luther's system: but he himself deduced a sanction for polygamy from that system; and for the reasons already given, I can only look on these disorders as the natural, direct, and even mitigated consequences of that doctrine, which some have dared to call the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ.'

It is most fully acknowledged, however, that no members of our Church are implicated in such extreme results. Both the habits of education and the force of public opinion so far enlighten their conscience, that they would recoil from open wickedness, and instantly renounce any such principle as appeared to them to involve it. Again, regular habits of morning and evening prayer are, I suppose, universally considered essential; though I have never happened to meet in their books with any very urgent practical advice on the extreme difficulty, and yet the indispensable importance, of keeping our mind, at times of prayer, really fixed on the occupation. And at all events, when we consider the profound subtlety of Satan and the complicated deceitfulness of the human heart, we shall expect to find that those who lay no prominent stress on the duty of self-examination and of hearty unremitting warfare against their old nature, remain subject to sins of a more secret character, without being even visited by any suspicion of their own captivity; much more without

making any vigorous and successful struggles for liberty. This I believe to be the case with multitudes; and in very many instances to an extent wholly inconsistent with Christian acceptance, or, as we say technically, to an extent involving mortal sin. A very few examples will make clearer the sort of sins which this statement contemplates.

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Undue reliance on wealth in those possessed of it. The Bible statements on this subject, if we would fairly listen to them, would surely lead us to imagine, that all professing any reverence for Scripture, who either enjoy or expect wealth, would be filled with misgivings and dismay. Under this feeling, holy men at various times, from an earnest desire of salvation, have given all that they have to the poor and followed' Christ, as fearing lest to possess earthly wealth, might dim their perception of the preciousness of the true riches. Now surely such persons as experience these misgivings, this dismay, even if they do not feel called, or have not the heart, to follow these high examples, will deeply reverence them, and endeavour, at least at humble distance, to profit by their lessons. But Evangelicals' of the present day seem unable even to conceive any motive for such sacrifices, except a desire of purchasing heaven.' A remarkable witness truly against themselves! a witness, that declarations, perhaps the most emphatic that are to be found in all Scripture, and uttered by our Lord Himself, awaken no responsive chord whatever in their own minds. And I believe it is very far indeed from an imaginary apprehension, to feel deeply alarmed lest there may be many Christians, who would treat as a suggestion of Satan a passing doubt on the certainty of their own salvation; and who yet allow themselves to take pleasure in the thought of their own wealth, of their power to satisfy their own desires, and to exercise an influence over others; and to rest for support on this pleasure; in a degree totally inconsistent with that lively sense of dependence on God and on the merits of Christ, which are peremptorily required for salvation.

A kindred temptation, addressed to a much larger class, is that which leads to an idolatrous reverence of wealth, or again

rank and station, possessed by others. I willingly take the present opportunity of expressing a very confident opinion, that the unhappy relations, established three centuries ago, between Church and State, have had a most miserable influence in fostering this sin; for the effect of those relations extends far more widely than might be supposed, and most materially affects the respective position of squire and clergyman in almost every parish in the land. However this may be, it is very much indeed more difficult to prevent ourselves from being dazzled and carried away by rank and station than might have been supposed; insomuch that he who is not conscious of the difficulty, gives great ground for fearing that he is very deeply plunged in the sin. To feel as much abhorrence for the callous selfishness and insensibility of the rich as for the peevishness, querulousness, and discontent of the poor; for the luxurious self-indulgence of the one as for the more coarse and brutal sensuality of the other; for indolent and slothful waste of time and talents in the former as for confirmed laziness in the latter; this is an achievement which few of us perhaps (even though knowing the importance of the object) have at all adequately reached. I am not speaking of our outward demeanour; which ought of course to differ according to the difference of ranks in those whom we address; but of inward sentiment in regard to matters of plain right and wrong. And very few have any idea, until they have thought of the subject, to how wonderful an extent their judgments in such matters are distorted, by the presence or absence of worldly and adventitious advantages. Unless we are most carefully on our guard, there is the most serious danger lest the habit of courting the favour or notice of such persons, if we happen to depend on them or to be thrown near them, may be carried to an extent, quite irreconcilable with the habit of making eternal salvation our principal ob ject; in other words, quite irreconcilable, unless repented of, with the hope of that salvation. Evangelicals' have been very frequently accused of courtliness and low adulation; and a priori there can be little doubt, unless there be far more habitual self-discipline than I see at all enforced in

their writings, that they will in many cases not think of struggling against the temptation, and so will forfeit grace."

From the same cause other sinful habits also, habits of censoriousness and uncharitable judgment, of pride, of envy, of discontent, of covetousness, and the rest, exist, it is to be feared, in several cases to such a degree as wholly to banish the presence of the Holy Spirit; and in very many most seriously to obstruct His gracious influence: and that, among those who conceal both from themselves and others the wickedness of their heart, by a fluent use of Scripture language, and self-complacent eulogies on their sense of their own sinfulness. Indeed it is a most startling consideration, and one which should surely alarm many who expect most confidently their own certain salvation, that no one, I suppose, embraces Evangelical' opinions, who does not hold his own salvation to be secure. Now when Evangelicals' come to make up so large a class as at the present time, it really demands the most anxious thought, in those who remember the Scripture declarations on the 'strait gate,' how they can safely stake their eternal interests on such a doctrine; a doctrine, which would seem to represent the really serious as bearing so ominously large a proportion to the worldly and irreligious.

II. It is an eternal and irreversible truth of natural religion, that beings whose will is not as yet wholly subordinate to the rule of right and the will of God, have this one paramount duty imposed on them before all other duties, viz. to exercise themselves in obedience to the voice of conscience, by unceasing efforts to reduce their will into a fuller and more complete subjection. The form which this eternal truth assumes under the pure Gospel, is very much as follows. Converts to Christianity, at their Baptism, by faith are jus

The subject only leads me to speak in the text of Evangelicals; but believing as I do that the safeguard, given by the pure Gospel against this habit of sycophancy, is a reverence for the spiritual power as such, I fully think that all classes of Christians will, as classes, be greatly infected with this sin, who are not altogether indignant and dissatisfied with the present relations of Church and State : nor will individuals of those classes commonly escape from the infection, except by means of anxious watchfulness directed to this special purpose. The history of our Reformed Church may be confidently appealed to, as bearing out this remark.

tified; by faith receive pardon for their past sins; by faith are endued with a most precious inward gift, and are brought into new relations, into a new sphere of unseen agencies. Then begins a new course of solemn trial and conflict, far more solemn indeed than any they can have hitherto known; a trial which so closely concerns them, that on their behaviour during its progress depends nothing less than their everlasting destiny: and that trial is no other than this, how carefully and watchfully they shall retain that faith which now is theirs, and to how great an extent, by following zealously their sense of duty, they shall engraft on it the habit of love. And whereas, although nothing can be more distinct than the conscience's claim to obedience, few things are more feeble than its power of enforcing it; whereas its very voice is instantaneously overwhelmed by the impetuous irruption of present impulses and inclinations; and whereas the resistance of corrupt human nature to that discipline and restraint, which is indispensably requisite for the continual improvement required of us, is most unceasing, energetic, and obdurate; the Gospel directs its most powerful motives, collected as it were from all quarters, to the strengthening of this one faculty, which is so peculiarly in need of strength.

And if I begin by mentioning, as among the principal of these motives, the fear of punishment, let it not be supposed, as it is often supposed, that lovers of Ancient Truth have low and carnal notions of the desirableness, for its own sake, of a religious life, or the spontaneous hatred of sin as such, which good men feel. Such passages as the following would shew sufficiently how groundless is this imputation.

This excellence and desirableness of God's gifts is a subject again and again set before us in Holy Scripture. Thus the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the "feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And again, under images of another kind: "He hath sent Me . . . ... to give. beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called Trees of Righteousness." a Or again, the Prophet Hosea: "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his

a Isaiah xxv. 6.

a Isaiah lxi. 1-3.